


Chica Chica Boom Boom

by kijilinn



Category: Markiplier (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Let's Players, Poor Pooches, Sassy Cat, Swearing, Underage Nudity, YouTube, lots and lots of swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-06-02 21:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6582568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijilinn/pseuds/kijilinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Markiplier wakes up to find that his golden retriever, while still golden, is much less of a retriever.</p><p>((on semi-permanent hiatus - 7/7/17))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nettle-rain](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=nettle-rain).



Chica Chica Boom Boom

 

                Somewhere, an alarm rang. Mark rolled over onto his stomach with a grunt and pulled the pillow back over his head. The alarm continued to ring. After a few more repeats of the alarm, Mark became conscious of something squirming up under his arm. “Chica,” he sighed. “Go bother someone else. I’m not up yet.” A soft whine answered him and the golden retriever pushed her way up under the blankets until her nose squished up into Mark’s armpit.

                Only…

                Mark sat up suddenly to stare down at the shape in his bed. A naked woman appeared to be half dangling out of the blankets, her upper half hidden and her face obviously where his armpit had just been. “Why?” he blurted in confusion and the blankets dolphined upwards, outlining the face of the woman. She fought with the blanket for a second, nosing into the sheets and flailing around until it fell back over her shoulders and she beamed at Mark, her shaggy platinum blonde hair falling wildly around her dark brown eyes and long-jawed but happy face.

                “Daddy!”

                “WHY?!” Mark repeated and threw himself backwards off the bed. He tripped over the blankets that caught at his ankles and he went down with a thunderous crash.

                The woman crawled across the bed to peer down at him, her head cocked to the side in an inquisitive look, “Daddy? What wrong?” She began to wiggle in the blankets, “Walks! Walks time!”

                “Oh, hell,” Mark mumbled from the floor, staring up at her. “Chica?”

                “That me!” she rolled sideways on the bed and beamed at him. “I Chica. Chica good dog.”

                “What the fuck.” Mark sighed and untangled himself from the floor. Standing up, he straightened his pajama pants and went hunting for a t-shirt to pull on. To his consternation, “Chica” bounded off the bed behind him and followed him happily around the room. He tried not to study her too closely: she looked probably about 20 years old and was utterly naked but also clearly unashamed of that state. She wasn’t unattractive, but she was insisting on calling him ‘Daddy’ and... “Oh, god, I’ve showered with Chica.” Mark put his face in his hand, laughing weakly.

                The girl danced around behind Mark, swinging back and forth to always keep just behind his feet. Finally, he spun around and caught her by the arms. “Chica.” She darted forward and licked his face and Mark spluttered in surprise. “Okay. Listen, Chica. Sit.”

                “Chica sit.” She folded her legs and promptly fell into a cross-legged seated position at his feet, wiggling her bottom happily. “Treat?”

                “Not yet.” Mark sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Chica, stay.”

                “Daddy.” Chica gave a gusty sigh and folded over her legs, resting her elbows on the floor in front of her and her chin in her palms. “Chica stay. Chica good dog.”

                Mark chewed his lip as he rummaged through the closet, looking for anything that might come close to fitting her. He pulled out a Warfstash t-shirt and a pair of draw-string lounge pants. They would have to do. “Chica, up.” Without thinking, Mark patted his chest, the hand gesture that went along with the command.

                Chica bounced to her feet and put her hands on his shoulders, leaning in close to lick at his face again. Her bottom continued to wiggle, as if she was wagging a tail that wasn’t there at the moment. Mark closed his eyes, blushing in surprise. “Yeah. No.” He gave her a gentle push on the shoulder, trying to get her to back off. With a little whine, Chica rocked back to stand in front of him, swaying a little. “Here, put these on.” Mark held out the shirt and pants.

                “What these?” Chica wondered, tilting her head to study the clothes. She leaned forward and sniffed at them, then began to wiggle again. “Smell like Daddy!”

                “On.” Mark sighed. “Put them on.” He shook out the pants and held them out for her, trying to indicate what he wanted her to do. “C’mon, Chica, you’re a smart girl. Put them on.”

                “Smart girl,” Chica repeated proudly, then studied what Mark was doing. After a moment, she stuck out one leg and pawed at the edge of the pajama pants. “Daddy?”

                “Good girl!” Mark cheered. “That’s right. Step in.” After a few more attempts, he managed to get the pants over Chica’s hips and tied the drawstring at her waist. “Better.” He stepped back and shook out the shirt, “Okay, smart girl, reach.”

                Chica paused and watched him warily for a moment, then put her arms over her head. Mark praised her and pulled the t-shirt over her head. She squeaked and whined as the shirt covered her eyes, trying to pull away. “No, no, hold on. Chica. Stay. Stay. It’s okay. Chica, no.” Finally, her platinum head popped free of the neck of the shirt and she looked at Mark, her expression injured. “Good girl,” he said and rubbed the top of her head.

                “Chica good girl,” Chica said sullenly. She squirmed a little and pulled at the neck of the shirt. “No like.”

                “Nobody does, honey,” Mark sighed and patted her shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get breakfast.”

                “Food!” Chica crowed and darted out past him. She shot down the hallway, collided with a wall, tumbled until she landed near the dog bowl. “Food. Food. Food, Daddy, food!” She was dancing over the bowl, her whole face lit with joy.

                “Oh, my GOD, Chica.” Mark groaned and followed her into the kitchen. “I can’t feed you dog food. Can I? Oh, god, how long is this going to last?” He stared at the happy blonde woman who had replaced his golden retriever. “How am I going to explain this?”

                “Explain what?” Matt was walking into the kitchen from the other direction, stretching and yawning.

                “Not Daddy!” Chica exclaimed and rushed to lean against Matt’s arm, wiggling and staring up at him adoringly.

                Matt froze and stared down at the ecstatic girl leaning against him. “Not Daddy?”

                “Not Daddy,” Chica agreed and danced from one foot to the other. “Food? Walks time?” She looked at Mark nervously, “Walks time soon?”

                “It’s Chica,” Mark said to Matt, waving his hands. “I woke up to her like that.”

                “The hell?” Matt said, baffled.

                “You’re telling me.”

                A very distinctive scream echoed from elsewhere in the building and they all looked in the direction of Ryan’s room. “Daddy?” Chica asked and came to lean against Mark. More screaming followed, accompanied by the sounds of crashing, yelping, and a voice none of them knew crying, “Good dog! Good dog!”

                “Apparently Lego, too,” Matt mumbled nervously.

                The door to Ryan’s room flew open and their roommate flung himself down the hallway, still screaming. A naked blonde boy about Ryan’s age followed him closely, looking worried and distressed, still calling after him. “Get away from me!” Ryan howled and dashed past Matt, Mark, and Chica.

                The naked boy stopped at the threshold of the kitchen, looking dejected and confused. “Lego good dog.”

                “Chica good dog?” Chica asked Mark, her expression worried.

                “Yes, Chica’s a good dog,” Mark sighed and rubbed her shoulder. “Lego’s a good dog, too. C’mere, Lego.” The blond boy nervously wiggled forward and flopped down on the floor to roll over onto his back. Mark closed his eyes in exasperation. “Up, Lego. C’mon, buddy, up please.” Lego rolled up to his knees and leaned against Mark’s leg, wiggling shyly. “When I didn’t think my morning could get weirder…”

                Matt vanished around the corner to retrieve Ryan from the pantry where he had blockaded himself, adding in a mutter, “At least it doesn’t seem to have affected the cat.”

                Ryan was huddled against the back wall of the pantry, eyes wild. “What the fuck, dude!?”

                “I don’t know,” Matt replied. “Just… c’mon.”

                Mark escorted Lego back to Matt’s room and located some clothes that might fit the skinny boy, going through the same pageant of dressing he had with Chica, only with Chica’s “help” this time. As they were coming back into the kitchen, Chica nudged Mark’s shoulder with her face, “Walks soon?”

                “Oh, shit.” Mark covered his face and tried not to groan to alarmingly. “How the fuck are we going to potty train two dogs?”

                “You got them to wear clothes,” Matt pointed out. Ryan was sitting at the snack bar, holding a peeled banana and staring at it like it might start to talk to him, too. “At this point, I think you can pretty much do anything.”

                It took a few attempts, but Mark did finally teach both new people to sit on the toilet instead of lifting their legs outside. He decided it was safer to teach Lego to sit than try to aim, since hands were still a new phenomenon to the dogs. He poured some coffee and cereal, then gave each dog a bowl of dry cereal. “Hands,” he told them, holding up his hands, palms out. “Use your hands.” He demonstrated by picking up some cereal in one hand and putting it in his mouth. “Mmm. Food. Use hands for food.”

                Chica studied the bowl thoughtfully for a moment, then shoved her whole face into the cereal, munching happily. Lego was more alert and pawed a few kernels of cereal out of the bowl and onto the table to pick up with his mouth. Mark sighed and watched them for a while, then looked at Matt and Ryan. “So. How was your morning?”

                “There was a naked boy in my bed,” Ryan mumbled. “Yours?”

                “Same,” Mark nodded sagely. “Only mine was a girl.”

                “Lucky.”

                “She calls me ‘Daddy’.”

                “Whatever gets you off, man.”

                “Oh, it really doesn’t,” Mark laughed uncomfortably. He looked at Chica and Lego as they continued to eat their first human breakfast. “I wonder if this is a dream. Or a magic thing that wears off. Or… damn it, I want my dog back!”

                “Chica good girl!” Chica said with a little bounce in her chair, cereal falling into her lap.

                “At least Lego can wear my shorts,” Ryan sighed, resting his chin in his hand and studying his former dog. “You’re gonna have to buy a bra for Chica.”

                “I feel like a Japanese anime,” Mark groaned.

                “She’s not that big, actually,” Matt pointed out, sitting down next to Chica and studying her. She flopped across his lap and wriggled on her back, grinning brilliantly up at him. Matt blushed. “I mean, maybe a big A cup? Small B? She could probably go without.”

                They all paused for a moment, looking at each other across the table. “This is so damn weird,” Mark laughed helplessly and put his forehead down on the table. “I guess I figured she’d be smaller if she was human. You know, more like a little girl?”

                “Yeah,” Ryan agreed. “We think of them like kids, but I guess they’re closer to adults in dog-years.” He reached over and rubbed a hand through Lego’s short, messy blond hair. The boy leaned toward him, kicking one foot against the floor happily. “Has anyone seen Banana Rambo yet?”

                “No, he wasn’t in my room this morning,” Matt replied. His brow furrowed, “I suppose I’d better go find him.” He stood up and headed off into the rest of the house.

                Ryan sat in silence for a moment, still scratching Lego’s hair while the boy flopped happily sideways. “I suppose we’re going to have to teach them everything about being human, huh?”

                “Well, some of it seems like it’s intuitive,” Mark said. “They can stand up on their own without being trained to stand on two feet. Their at-rest position is standing, not on all-fours.”

                “But clothing is new,” Ryan added. “And eating with utensils.”

                “That makes sense, though,” Mark said quickly. “The things that are cultural, they of course wouldn’t be able to do on their own. They see us do them, but they’ve never had to for themselves. There’s no analogy in dog terms.” He rest his chin in his hand to study the dogs intently. Both looked back at him, Lego with nervousness and Chica with undisguised adoration. “So, we need to teach them what is and isn’t okay, how to do things that we take for granted, and how to talk, at the very least.”

                “Do you think this is permanent?” Ryan asked, his expression forlorn. “I miss my dog.”

                “Me, too,” Mark sighed. “No way of knowing, so we’d better think of it as the new normal.”

                “How are we going to explain who they are?” Ryan said. “No ID, no social security number, no nothing.”

                “Dude, one crisis at a time.” Mark stood up and stretched. “C’mon, Chica. Let’s go for a walk.”

                “Walks!” she cried and scrambled out of the chair. “Walks, walks! Walks now. Chica like walks.”

                Mark put a hand on her shoulder, “Wait. Chica, listen.” She stilled and stood in front of him, her expression focused but her behind still wiggling in excitement. “Chica. You. Mark. Me.” He motioned as he spoke, keeping eye contact with her. “You are Chica. I am Mark.”

                She tilted her head and studied him. “Chica.”

                “You are Chica.”

                “Daddy.”

                “Mark. I am Mark.”

                “Mark. Daddy Mark.”

                “Just Mark. I am Mark.”

                Chica seemed to slowly take this in for a moment, then nodded, “Mark. Daddy am Mark.”

                “Is. Daddy is Mark.” Mark shrugged to himself. Might as well go with what she was understanding.

                “Daddy is Mark.” Chica considered, then added, “Chica is Chica?”

                “You are Chica. You say ‘I am Chica.’”

                “I… I…?”

                “Yes, good girl! I means me.” Mark tapped his chest, “I means you.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Chica is I.”

                “I! I is Chica.”

                “I am Chica.”

                “I am Chica!”

                “Good girl!” Mark cried and hugged her. “You’re such a good girl, Chica!”

                “I am Chica!” she crowed and danced. After a second, she figured out her arms and threw them around Mark, hugging him back. “I am Chica! I am good girl!”

                “A,” Mark added with a grin. “You are A good girl.”

                “Chica am A good girl?”

                “Chica IS a good girl. I AM a good girl.”

                Chica snorted out and shook her head, obviously getting tired of this game. “I am a good girl.”

                “Yes, you are,” Mark agreed and hugged her again.

                Chica sighed and leaned into the hug, “Nice.”

                Mark chuckled and rubbed her back. “Poor baby. It’s been a rough day for you, too, hasn’t it?”

                Just as he was turning away from Chica, a small ginger-haired boy about ten years old and completely nude wandered past in the hallway, looking content and calm. He paused, peered in at Mark and Chica and said, “Where’s my food, dumb ass?”

                “Matt?” Mark called. “I think we found Banana.”


	2. Shopping

Mark, Matt, and Ryan sat at the table, contemplating their former pets turned new roommates. Chica and Lego were sitting obediently at the table, clothed and doing their best to look attentive and human. Banana Rambo, easily ten apparent years younger than any of them, had climbed onto the counter and was reclined comfortably there, completely naked and utterly refusing to put on the clothing the boys had been pushing at him.  

“So.” Mark folded his hands on front of him on the table. “Let’s take a look at where we are. We have three new roommates, one of whom is female, one of whom is underage.” 

“And naked,” Matt replied, his forehead on the table. 

“And naked,” Mark agreed. “And prone to fits of swearing.” 

“Fuck you!” Banana Rambo announced proudly from the counter. 

“Fuck you, too,” Ryan sighed. “Our lives just got a whole lot weirder.” 

“You’re telling me,” Mark groaned. “At the very least, we’re going to need to buy something like sports bras for Chica and clothing that fits Banana.” 

“I won’t wear it,” the boy on the counter announced. 

“Why is the cat the smartest one in this conversation?” Mark said, waving a hand at the cat boy. 

“Because the cat pays attention to communication,” Banana replied. “Just because I’m young doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.” 

“Chica good girl?” Chica inquired nervously. 

“Is a good girl,” Mark confirmed, almost reflexively now. 

“Chica is a moron,” snorted Banana and rolled over to face the wall. Chica deflated and put her chin on the edge of the table. 

Mark rubbed his forehead and sighed, “So, sports bras for Chica which I think we can probably buy without looking too weird and we don’t need her to try them on. We’ll negotiate with Banana.” The cat snorted derisively from the counter and Mark closed his eyes. “I think Lego can get by with our clothing for now, right?” 

“He’s about your size, Mark,” Ryan said with a nod. “We’ll just be doing laundry more often.” 

“We need a bigger litter box,” Banana announced without rolling toward them. “I am not pissing in the indoor pond.” 

“You’ve got hands,” Matt snapped, “If you want a bigger litter box, you’re scooping it yourself.” 

“I can deal with that,” Banana replied. 

“Larger litter box,” Mark sighed, “and more cat litter. Check.” 

“Are we going to need lady things?” Ryan said, sitting up straighter suddenly. 

“Lady things?” Mark laughed, palms up. 

Ryan looked uncomfortable, “Like… pads or tampons.” 

“Oh, shit,” Mark doubled over in his chair, laughing helplessly. “She’s spayed. Does that mean…?” 

“I’m neutered,” Banana informed them, deadpan. “I’ll thank you to not mention it again.” 

“I never thought to check,” Matt said miserably. “I was mostly trying to avoid looking down there.” 

“So, no period stuff for Chica. At least we won’t have to explain it to her.” Mark giggled weakly into his hands. “Oh, my god, this is so fucked up!” 

Ryan started to laugh, too, one hand over his eyes. “Guys, it’s happening all over. It’s on the internet, look.” He turned his phone toward them. Twitter was exploding with confused pet owners all over the world waking up to humans where their beloved dogs, cats, birds, and snakes had been the night before.  

“Oh, thank GOD,” Mark sighed. “At least it’s not just us. It’ll be a hell of a lot easier to explain now.” He stood up and stretched, “Well, I’m going down to Walmart and see what I can pick up to make this easier for everyone.” 

“Ride?!” Chica said hopefully, sitting up again. Lego also sat straighter, expression joyful. 

“No, you’d better stay here,” Mark said with a sheepish grin. “We’ll need more food, more underwear, sports bras, litter.” He glanced around the kitchen, “Anything else?” 

“Tuna,” Banana replied. 

“Only if you’re willing to put clothes on,” Mark said and the cat groaned dramatically. “That’s the deal, ginger. Play by human rules, get human food.” 

“Fuck you,” Banana said, holding up a middle finger in Mark’s general direction. 

“And clean up your language or you’ll get nothing but salad,” Mark said cheerfully as he headed for the front door. “Call me if you guys think of anything else, okay?” 

 

The Walmart was a chaotic mess of people. In the parking lot, a couple in their thirties were trying to gingerly help an elderly lady from the front seat of their sedan while a young man about their own age and another closer to his mid-twenties, both ginger-haired and nearly identical, chased each other around the cars. One older woman was trying to escort about eight young men and women dressed in a variety of old fashioned night gowns through the clothing department. A younger couple with a toddler were practically dragging a cherubic man in his 30s with slate-gray hair and a woman in her 60s with an odd tilt to her head through the produce. Seeing the desperation in everyone’s eyes, Mark was glad he’d left the rest of the new family at home. 

He collected the things he knew he needed, scooped up a few additional random things that looked like a good idea, then shoved his cart for the check-out lines. When he unloaded his purchases, the cashier looked at him in amusement, “Dogs or cats?” 

“Two dogs, one cat,” he told her with a smile.  

“Please tell me you’re having better luck with the cat than I’m having with mine.” 

“He won’t put clothes on,” Mark lamented. “But he has offered to scoop his own litter.” 

“Definitely a step up from mine,” the cashier smiled at him. “The worst have been the rodent owners. They’re suddenly stuck with these adults who are terrified of loud noises, large objects, sudden movements. It’s really heartbreaking to watch.” 

“I’ll bet the Chihuahua owners are having a tough time, too,” Mark grinned. 

“You have NO idea,” she laughed. She told him his total, accepted his debit card, and gave him a little wave as he collected his bags. “Good luck with your new family.” 

“You, too,” Mark smiled at her and headed for the car.  

As he arrived and unlocked the doors to load his purchases into the back seat, he watched as a young woman sprinted across the parking lot, pursued by another woman about the same age. “I HAVE LEGS!” the first was screaming, her arms thrown to the sky in absolute delight.  

“Noot Noot!” the other was almost sobbing as she chased her down. “Come back!” 

“It’s gonna be a weird new world for a while,” Mark smiled to himself, started the car and drove home. 

 

“Tuna.” 

“Clothes.” 

“TUNA.” 

“Clothes first.” 

“Go fuck yourself with a rusty soup can and give me the damned tuna!” 

“I will see your ginger butt covered before you taste a lick of tuna.” 

Banana Rambo bared his teeth menacingly and hissed at the shirt Matt was flapping at him. “I’m gonna piss in your shoes and shit on your pillow.” 

“Wouldn’t be the first time, ball-less.” Matt threw the t-shirt at the cat. “And get off the counter.” 

With a grumble, Banana grabbed the shirt and hopped down to the floor. “Fucker. You just wait, I’m gonna outlive your skinny ass. I’ll put you in a shelter when you’re old and nobody will want to adopt you.” He pulled the shirt over his head and glared at Matt sullenly. 

“You know you love me,” Matt grinned and ruffled the ginger boy’s fluffy hair before handing him a pair of shorts and jeans. Once the boy was dressed and sitting at the table next to Chica and Lego, Matt started opening cans of tuna while Ryan toasted bread with cheese. When Matt put a tuna sandwich down in front of Banana, he caught the boy peeking up affectionately at him, only to glare as soon as he caught Matt watching. “You’re such a fucking cat.” 

“Thank you,” Banana mumbled around the sandwich.  

Chica and Lego were slowly getting the hang of using their hands to eat things, so the sandwiches went over pretty well. When Mark came back in from Walmart, they were all eating lunch together, the animals even using their hands politely. “Walmart was hysterical,” Mark told them as he dropped the bags on the spare table. “People and new humans all over the place. Absolute chaos.” 

“Sounds like our kind of scene,” Ryan grinned. 

“Look! Banana’s dressed!” Matt crowed proudly and Banana Rambo rewarded him with an upraised middle finger. 

Mark grinned and shook his head, then pulled out the two-pack of sports bras to cut the packaging off. “Chica, c’mere.” She came over to him excitedly and Mark gave her the bras. “Put these on your top part, under your shirt,” he told her. 

“Oh, this is gonna be great,” Banana Rambo practically purred at the look of nervous confusion on Chica’s face. 

As the platinum-haired girl wandered away to puzzle over her new clothing, Mark’s phone began to buzz. When he pulled it out to check, the display read “Momiplier.” “Oh, shit,” he gasped and answered quickly, “Hi, Mom.” 

"Mark, there are two girls in my house." 

"Yeah, Mom, I kinda figured that." 

"My dogs are missing." 

"Yeah." 

"Where are my dogs, Mark? What is happening?" 

"Chica's a girl now, too, Mom. And Lego and the cat." 

Banana Rambo looked offended, "What, I don't even get a name now?" 

Mark gave him a quelling glare. "We really don't know what's going on." 

"I want my dogs back, Mark." 

"Me, too, Mom." 

"They wear my clothes. And the little one keeps kissing me." 

"Tell her to stop. She'll probably stop if you tell her to." 

Mark winced at the sudden chaos on the other end of the line as his mother argued with the two women who her dogs had become. Distantly, he could hear a small voice saying, "Mommy!? Mommy! Mommy!"  

"Mom, are you okay?" 

"Fix it, Mark," she snapped, her voice tight in exasperation. 

"I'll do what I can," he replied and his mother hung up on him. "Oh, man." 

"Maggie and Lucy giving her trouble?" Ryan asked and Mark just nodded helplessly. 

"Why is it MY job to fix it?" Mark asked as he put his phone back in his pocket.  

"Because you control the internet and this is obviously the internet's fault?" Ryan guessed. 

[[META PAUSE WHILE THEY STARE OUT AT US]] 

"I guess," Mark sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. "At least we're starting to get along here okay." 

"DADDY!" Chica's voice was afraid and confused and Mark sighed.  

"Well, I THOUGHT we were getting along okay..."


	3. Evening News

That evening, Mark sat on the couch with Matt and Chica, watching the local news. Ryan was in the kitchen making popcorn while Lego paced nervously behind him and nobody had seen Banana Rambo for about an hour. Chica was still pulling nervously at the strap of her bra, but Mark tapped her shoulder occasionally to remind her to stop.  

The entire nation was in chaos over the sudden influx of new humans where domesticated animals had been the night before. Households which were tight were now overflowing. The nation's homeless population had quadrupled. The saddest news items were about the animal shelters, some of which were closed right now for repairs from dozens of humans suddenly shattering their way out of cat-sized cages. "It seems limited to cats, dogs, birds, snakes, and rodents," Mark murmured, scratching the back of Chica's head absently. 

"The rat problem is suddenly a very different kind of problem," Matt agreed. "The zoos aren't having problems, though. All the big cats and wolves are staying themselves." 

"I wonder if it's got to do with how much time they spend with humans," Mark wondered. 

"Doesn't work," Ryan put in from the kitchen. "Stray cats and dogs are just as likely to turn as household ones and some of those are straight-up feral." 

"He's right." They all looked up in time to see Banana Rambo ambling in from outside. 

"Who let you outside?" Matt demanded. 

"I did." Banana held up his hands and wiggled his thumbs at Matt. "Thumbs, bitch. Read 'em and weep." The boy crawled up onto the couch, bumped Chica to the side so she flopped into Mark's lap, and sat on the back of the couch with his feet between Chica and Matt's hips. "Went out for a walk to see what's happening in the neighborhood." 

"And?" Ryan came into the living room and offered a bowl of popcorn to Mark and Chica. Chica stole a few kernels with her fingers and awkwardly stuffed them into her mouth while Mark rubbed her back encouragingly.  

Banana reached down to steal a handful of popcorn from Mark's bowl. "More of the same, really. Everyone's out trying to find ways to manage their two-to-three new family members." He munched the popcorn, elbows on his knees.  

Ryan sat down in a chair with his popcorn and a can of soda, only to yelp a negative as Lego crawled into his lap and snuggled down. "No, Lego! Down!" 

"Nervous," Lego whimpered and Ryan sighed, rubbing the back of the dog's head.  

"Down, please," Ryan urged. "You're too big for this, buddy." Lego whined again, but finally slid down onto the floor and sat in a dejected heap at Ryan's feet. Ryan looked down helplessly and sighed again, "You can sit in a chair. Just not on me, okay?" 

"No, stayin' close." Lego scooted across the floor and leaned against Ryan's leg. 

Banana Rambo shook his head, laughing silently. Matt gave him a little shove with his elbow and the cat looked down. "Don't laugh," Matt murmured. "Of all the places you could be sitting, you're leaning on me, cuddly." Banana snorted and looked away, but didn't move. 

"So, it's happening all over," Mark said as he stretched backwards on the couch. "And it's happening to all kinds of animals, but only domesticated ones. This seriously sounds like something out of Spiderman or something. Super-villain causes overpopulation to distract the world while he sneaks into power or something." 

"Incapacitate the world's leaders by making their pets into humans who piss on the carpet and cry when left alone?" Banana Rambo said. "It makes as much sense as anything, I suppose." 

"Man, I'll bet the scientists are having a field day," Matt said suddenly. "All their test subjects are human now." 

Mark winced, "Oh, man, I don't even want to think about that." Chica snuggled up against Mark's shoulder with a little whine and he pinched his lips together, trying not to smile.  

Suddenly, both dogs and Banana Rambo sat up straight and looked toward the front of the house. "Someone's here," Banana said unnecessarily. 

Into the room strode a tall, angular, elegant woman with almost impossibly black skin, short, smooth ebony hair, and the most brilliantly green, almond-shaped eyes any of them had ever seen. She was dressed in poorly-fitted jogging pants and a tank top which read, "Vegetarian: not because I love animals. Because I hate plants." She stared over the assembled people haughtily, then stared at Banana Rambo and said, "I require the kitten." 

"Fuck you, lady, I'm not going anywhere," Banana replied, eyebrows raised in surprise. Matt could feel him twitching, almost like he was trying to fluff up his tail the way he would have when frightened as a cat. 

"Your opinion is not required," the woman said as she stepped forward and reached with one long-fingered hand to grasp his shoulder. "Your presence is." 

Matt launched to his feet, followed just as quickly by Ryan, Mark, Chica, and Lego. The two dogs were growling and the woman stared them all down without flinching. "Who are you and why do you want Banana?" Matt demanded. 

She waved a hand and reached for Banana Rambo again, but the kitten had already done a backwards barrel roll off the couch and was hiding behind Matt. "Unimportant. I simply require the kitten and you may continue whatever you do." Before anyone could respond, the woman had leaped over the couch and tackled Banana. With her fingers grasping the back of his neck like a mother cat with a scruffed kitten, she turned sharply toward the front door and began walking. Banana flailed his arms angrily and broke free from her grasp, leaving the woman to stare at her hand in puzzlement. "Foolish kitten, come here." 

When she came for Banana again, Matt got between them and put his arms out to block her path. "You should just give up. He's not going anywhere he doesn't want to go." She sneered at Matt and swung her hand for his face, fingers curled into claws. Surprised, Matt managed to block her swat and Ryan rushed her, trying to pin her down. Mark was already dialing 911 as Ryan dropped the tall woman to the ground in a heap. 

There was a wild thrashing of limbs, until Ryan realized that he was no longer pinning down a tall woman but was trying to grapple a bundle of workout clothes with an angry Siamese cat inside. Startled, he let her go and the cat streaked for the front door. The door burst open as the cat became a woman again and she sprinted out into the yard, utterly naked. Lego and Chica gave chase, but were quickly out-paced by the long-legged woman. 

Ryan slowly stood up from the floor, staring down at the shed gym clothes in his hands, covered in short, sleek black fur. "Okay, that registers as the weirdest thing I've seen today." 

"No kidding." Banana Rambo was trembling behind Matt, his amber eyes like saucers. "She changed. She changed to a cat, then back to a human." He looked up at Matt and they were all struck again by how young he really was. "Maybe... maybe I should have gone with her? Maybe she could teach me." 

Matt hugged him, "We don't know that for sure. I'd rather have you here, where I know you're safe."  

Banana nodded, but Mark couldn't help but notice the longing expression on the cat's face as he stared out the window, wondering where that Siamese had gone.


	4. Bedtime and Breakfast

Mark stood in the bathroom, teaching a careful lesson on tooth-brushing. Chica and Lego were wobbling the brushes around in their mouths, expressions screwed up in careful disgust. Banana Rambo was staring at his toothbrush in mortification. "You have the weirdest sense of humor, Mark." 

"Just brush your teeth," Mark mumbled around his toothbrush.  

Once everyone's teeth were brushed, Mark said, "Bedtime." Chica was out of the bathroom like a shot, curled up in Mark's bed before he could say anything. Lego went for Ryan's room and whined by the closed door. Banana Rambo rolled his eyes and walked to the couch in the living room without a second glance. "I don't know what I thought I expected," Mark sighed as he studied the nervously smiling girl in his bed. "Chica, honey. You need to sleep somewhere else." 

"Chica bad girl?" She asked, her tone alarmed and horrified.  

Mark sighed, "No, you're fine. You didn't do anything wrong. It's just... it's okay if a girl dog sleeps with me, but it's not okay if a girl human sleeps with me. Okay?" 

"Chica still dog." 

"No," Mark sat down on the edge of the bed. "Unfortunately, you are not." Chica whined and wiggled over until she could put her head in his lap and Mark sighed. "Okay, you can sleep in the bed. But I'm going to sleep on the floor." He took a pillow and a blanket and headed for the softest part of the carpet he could think of. 

"Daddy!" 

"Not daddy," Mark groaned. 

Chica looked puzzled, then paused. "Merk." 

"Good enough." 

"Merk. Merk sleep here." Chica patted the bed. "Chica sleep on floor. Chica sleeps on floor a lot." 

Mark looked at her with a smile, fondness in his eyes. "Baby, that's really sweet. But it's okay. You sleep in the bed tonight. We'll figure it out tomorrow. Okay?" 

Chica frowned and her eyebrows pulled down in distress, "Merk sleep in bed!" 

"Will someone just sleep in the damn bed?!" Banana Rambo hollered from the living room. 

Mark sighed and threw his hands up, "Fine, fine!" He walked over and crawled into the bed, leaving his glasses on the bedside table. "Sleep wherever you wanna sleep, then." He turned out the light, then grunted in surprise when Chica landed on him, snuggling tight up beside him. "Oh, well." 

 

Morning dawned and Mark slowly opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling and hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe, the warm body next to him was a golden retriever wearing a sports bra, t-shirt, and sweat pants. He patted the side of the bed and sighed miserably when he found the very obviously human curve of a hip. "Damn." 

Chica snuffled and rolled over in a flail of limbs, wrapping herself around Mark's face and snuggling into his neck with a mumbled string of nonsensical word parts. Mark grunted in surprise and sighed again, struggling to disentangle himself from the fluffy blonde so he could get up. Eventually, she let him go and Mark staggered out into the living room. Banana Rambo was sitting on the back of the couch, flipping channels on the TV. 

"Did you sleep?" Mark asked him. 

"Of course I slept," Banana snapped. "I'm a cat." But he didn't meet Mark's eyes and Mark could see the dark bags under the boy's eyes.  

Mark smiled and started the coffee pot, then poured himself some cereal and offered the box to Banana, "Breakfast?" 

The cat sniffed the air, then asked, "Is there milk?" 

"Yes, but you can't just have milk. You have to eat something else." 

"Fine." Banana Rambo came over to the table and sat down, chin in his hands. Mark poured him a bowl of cereal and smothered it in milk before sliding it down with a spoon. The cat poked at the cereal for a while the spoon and sighed, "Mark, I miss being a cat." 

"I don't blame you," Mark agreed, sitting across from him with his own cereal and a mug of coffee. 

"I spent all night trying to turn back," Banana admitted in a small voice. 

Mark frowned sympathetically, "No luck?" 

Banana shook his head. "After seeing the Siamese do it, it seemed like it'd be easy, y'know? Just a twist of the brain and POOF, I'd be me again." 

"You're still you," Mark pointed out, but Banana shot him a scathing look. "Thumbs," Mark reminded him, wiggling his own. 

Banana gave a shrug and nodded, "That part has been nice." He heaved a dramatic sigh and stuffed a spoonful of cereal into his mouth, chewing reluctantly. "I hate chewing food. I hate brushing my teeth. I hate the very IDEA of having to shower and peeing in that indoor lake is disgusting. I can't reach butt with my tongue. I miss my tail and my whiskers. How do you people keep from falling over? Or know how wide a space you can fit through?" 

"Practice," Mark admitted through a mouthful of cereal. "It does take us something like two years to be effective with the balance part and not everyone gets there." He swallowed, then looked at the cat in surprise, "You don't chew your food?" 

Banana shook his head, "Cats don't have to. We digest everything whole." He tapped his molars. "We don't have these grass-mushing things. We rip things up and swallow them. Predators, y'know." 

"Humans are predators," Mark said a little defensively and Banana Rambo laughed. 

"Only because you learned how to make tools," the cat crowed in amusement. "You think gorillas go hunting down their prey? They eat grass and leaves mostly." 

Mark stared at him for a minute, "How do you know all this shit?" 

"Discovery channel." Banana Rambo returned to his cereal with a smile worthy of the Cheshire Cat. 

 

"Okay, I'm going to go do some recording," Mark said to the assembled people and former animals after breakfast. "I'm behind on the videos." 

"Chica help?" Chica inquired, still brushing crumbs of cereal off of her face with her hands. 

Before Mark could complete the negative forming on his face, Ryan jumped in, "Chica and Lego can help me. I need to scout some locations for something I want to work on, so I'll be walking around town for a while. Sound good, guys?" Both dogs looked overjoyed to be given something to do, nodding wildly.  

"I've got some editing to catch up on," Matt said with a nod. "Banana?" 

The cat stretched, skinny arms thrown up and out to embrace nothing, and eyed Mark for a moment. "I'm going to take a nap."  

"I'll catch up with you guys later," Mark smiled and everyone headed off in their own directions. 

 

"Hello, everyone, my name is Markiplier and I just wanted to touch base with you guys out there. We woke up here yesterday with Chica and Lego and Matt's cat, Banana Rambo, all magically transformed into people. Most of you pet owners out there are probably dealing with the same thing, so more power to you, I guess. It's been kind of wild around here and I suppose it's been pretty wild out there, too. I just wanna remind everyone to be safe and treat your new friends well, even when you're frustrated. I know it's not easy..." Mark paused for a second to grin helplessly at the camera and started to giggle, "and it's been REALLY difficult to be patient." He cleared his throat and tried to sober up a little. "But they're still the same furry or feathery or scaly friends you knew before. Only bigger now. And in some cases smarter. At the very least, they're more verbally knowledgeable than they were before. Unless you had a parrot. Then it's probably negotiable." Mark grinned and ran his fingers through his hair so it stood up in a puff. "Since nobody knows how or why this happened, we don't know how long it's going to last or if it'll be permanent or not. So..." 

Mark stopped dead when he saw something in his camera, "WHAT!?" Banana Rambo had slowly risen from behind him like a specter, face contorted into a strange, almost menacing smile. "What the hell!?" Banana tackled Mark from behind and knocked him out of his chair, resulting a lot of screaming that rapidly fell into laughter as Mark realized the cat had ambushed him from a sense of play. "Banana!!" Mark managed to flail into camera again and shouted, "That was Banana Rambo, folks. Random visit from a very random cat. Anyway, I've got to go. I will see you in the next video! Bye-bye!" Banana popped up quickly to wave with Mark at the camera. 

After he'd turned the camera off, Mark turned around to the cat with an amused expression. "What the hell was that?" 

"My debut," the cat replied dramatically, then scrambled away with a hissing giggle.


	5. Practicing

After editing and uploading Mark's vlog for publishing, Matt stretched and walked into the living room. Ryan was still out with the dogs and Mark was engrossed in a video game for fun, so the house was fairly quiet. He wandered absently into the kitchen and began poking through the fridge, contemplating lunch.  

Something wound around his ankles and Matt looked down, shocked to see an orange and white kitten curling his tail around his shin. "Banana?" The cat blinked slowly, then twitched his fur all over and gave out a frustrated yowl before transforming suddenly into a young boy again. "Buddy, are you okay?" Matt crouched down and put a hand on Banana's shoulder, worried. 

"I can't hold it," the cat said softly, his head hung down. "I had it. And I lost it." He looked up at Matt, eyes full of distress and defiance and despair. "I want to be a cat. Being human sucks." 

Matt chuckled and gave him a hug, which Banana Rambo shrugged out of uncomfortably. "Just wait until we try to enroll you in school, buddy. Being human gets worse." 

"I don't need fucking school," Banana snapped and stood up. He reached into the fridge, grabbed the carton of milk and poured himself a glass. "You think I've been sleeping for the last six months? I can read. I can count. I watch TV. I've learned shit-tons just by being around you people." He sat on a stool and drank some of the milk, first sticking his tongue into it and lapping, then looking annoyed and sipping with his lips. "Did you know that there are 1.5 billion cows on the planet right now? That Buckingham Palace has seven hundred and seventy-five rooms? That rubber balloons were invented in 1824 by Michael Faraday because he needed something to hold hydrogen while he was studying it? I don't need school; I have Wikipedia." 

Matt sighed. "Buddy, I know. No one really likes school. But you're going to have to go. You can't stay as a housecat forever." 

"I can if I figure out how to stick this transformation," Banana said and finished the glass of milk. "Later, loser." He trotted off down the hall without a backward glance. 

Matt watched him go with a sad sigh. He missed having his kitten. This snarky child was more than he bargained for when he adopted an orange-and-white fluffball from the SPCA. He flopped down on the couch and began to flip through his Instagram. Before too much time had passed, he had dozed off. 

When Matt's breathing evened out, Banana Rambo stuck his head back into the living room. He confirmed that Matt was asleep, then darted across the room and out the door. "Only good thing about this clusterfuck is the thumbs," he mumbled to himself as he sprinted across the yard and down the street. Once he was far enough away, he found a bush to hide behind and focused hard, hands fisted against his thighs and his eyes tightly closed. A frustrated squeak snuck out of his throat and the world grew away from him as his body twisted downward into his clothes. Trembling with the effort, Banana stuck his head out of the neck of his shirt and exhaled in relief. A cat. He was a cat again. For as long as he could hold it. In a flash of orange and white, the kitten bounced across a yard and headed off to explore.  

  

The transformation held longer this time than he had managed any time before and Banana was feeling pretty confident when he sauntered down an alley several blocks away from home. There were scents here that comforted him: the layered smell of multiple related cats, warm kittens nursing, dead birds and squirrels. He slipped slowly down the alley, whiskers arched forward and tail held alert.  

A long-limbed grey-point Siamese sauntered out to greet him, her amber eyes half-lidded in welcome. She circled Banana Rambo, sniffed his tail, brushed her whiskers against his shoulder. When he squinted back to her politely, she leaned lightly against him, curled her tail around his and escorted him down the alley. She smelled like the sister of the cat who had stormed into Mark's house the previous night, better socialized and definitely better at communicating intent. She brought him down to a broken-out window that led into the basement of one of the buildings and slipped down ahead of him. 

Inside, at least eight adult cats were in the process of making this their home. Banana's nose continued to twitch curiously, picking out the scent of his guide and her sister, two neutered males, three spayed females, and one gloriously nursing unspayed mother. She had three kittens on the teat and when he spotted her, the calico's whiskers and ears flattened warily, tail lashing. As his guide brought him to the center of the room, Banana also counted the other cats: all at least partially Siamese in breeding and most of them with their right ears clipped. He knew from reading online that the local Trap-Neuter-Release program used that designation to keep from picking up the same cat more than once. 

A strange scent reached him and Banana struggled to hold back a sneeze. When it finally broke out, a chain of nine sneezes ended with him sitting on the bare floor, naked and human again. "Damn." 

His guide squinted her eyes in amusement and gracefully turned into a human, kneeling across from him with her hands on her knees. "Do not worry. The knack will come." She was as beautiful in human form as she was as a cat, with a grey frame of hair around her face tapering into creamy white at the tips. Her eyes were too darkly amber to be completely human, but that only made her prettier for Banana. "My sister, she found you but you did not come." 

"No," he agreed. "I didn't know her, so why would I?" 

"Because she told you to come." Her pointed face tilted to the side in puzzlement. "Do you not wish to learn? Is that not why you are here now?" 

"Yes." Banana settled himself cross-legged on the floor and folded his hands in his lap. "I guess that's why I'm here." He glanced over the other cats, several of whom were popping into human form in what almost seemed like a gesture of comfort toward him. "Why me?" 

The female tilted her head in the other direction and smiled at him, eyes squinting, "You do not know? Dancer-in-Fire, you are my brother's offspring. You are a part of us. We seek all our own, to teach. To be together." 

"Dancer-in-Fire?" Banana looked at her in confusion. 

One of the other adults, a spayed female who looked about 25 in human terms came over and leaned against Banana, resting her forehead against his shoulder. Her long, dark hair spilled over his shoulder and Banana could feel the softness of her cheek and shoulder: she had been a roly-poly house cat before this. "We don't even recognize ourselves, thanks to humans. Now, we have hands to pet each other, thumbs to open cans and doors, cross-species language that is more accurate than kitten-speak to the stupid people. We're more than they understand." 

Banana shifted to pull his knees to his chest and studied the other human-form felines. "Did you do this?" 

"This?" the Siamese asked, her head tilted to the side. 

"All the animals. The cats and dogs and everything. The pets are all human now. Is it because of something you did?" 

The Siamese squinted her eyes and gave him a small, enigmatic smile, drawing a sigh and rolled eyes from the round-faced black female. "She won't say, but I think that's because she doesn't know." The two females glared at each other for a moment and Banana hid a smile in his knees: they were practically thrashing their tails at each other, even in human form. "If it was something cats had done, I think it would have been smaller, more subtle," she continued, addressing Banana. "Why would we give this gift to dogs and vermin, too?" 

"Mark saw a snake running loose at Walmart," Banana grinned and the black female returned the expression.  

"If a cat did it, it's one of the tricksters," she nodded. "This whole situation is funny as hell." 

"Tricksters?" Banana asked.  

The female shrugged, "Loki, Coyote, the trickster gods. You can't tell me there isn't one who's feline." 

"Like the Cheshire Cat, from _Alice in Wonderland_!" 

"Exactly." 

The Siamese shifted her hips and transformed back into a cat, her tail uplifted and her whiskers flattened in distaste. "Oops, stole her thunder," whispered the shaggy black female with a confidential grin. "She hates it when the house cats talk in references she doesn't get." 

"Especially when they do it on purpose?" Banana asked slyly and the female looked away, her lips pursed into a silent, innocent whistle. "Do you have a name I can call you?" 

"They call me Soggy-Paws here. It's accurate, if not exactly flattering," she shrugged and smiled sheepishly. "The humans I lived with called me Butterball, which is worse." 

Banana considered for a moment, then said, "What do you call you?" 

"Glory." 

"Can I call you that?" 

Her face softened, then opened up into a brilliant smile, "That would be nice." 

"Dancer-in-Fire is pretty and all," Banana said, "but I have no idea why they call me that other than my coloration. My people call me Banana Rambo." 

Glory smiled quietly and leaned against his shoulder again, "What do you call you?" 

Banana grinned. "Teaser. Thief. Milk-stealer. Rat-bastard. Matt gets it right sometimes." 

"What should I call you?" 

"I answer to Banana, when I answer. And the humans have been calling me that enough that I think of myself that way, I guess." 

"Banana Thief," Glory whispered and her eyes flashed playfully.  

"It's got a nice ring," Banana agreed with a nod. 

A sudden burst of commotion near the entrance to the basement drew everyone's attention. All the cats in feline form fluffed their fur up in mingled anger and fear while the human-formed cats leapt to their feet warily. "What's going on?" Banana asked. 

"Dog." Glory lifted her head and stared wide-eyed across the basement. "There's a dog outside." 

"Like a dog-dog? Or a human dog?" 

A voice drifted in from outside: "Cat? Cat? Banana cat!"  

Banana sighed and covered his face, "It's Lego." 

"Banana cat! Come out, Banana cat!" 

"We're going to have to leave if they've found us," Glory said sadly. "Shit. I kind of liked it down here. And Sunshine-Stealer's kittens are still too small to move without having to carry them." 

Banana raised his eyebrows, "Why would you leave? Lego won't hurt you. He's a little yappy sometimes but generally okay. As dogs go, anyway." 

"If he knows where you are, the people won't be far behind." Glory sighed. "You should go with him for now. We'll let you know where we are when we find someplace new." 

Disappointed, Banana nodded, then seized the black cat in a tight hug. "I'm glad I found you." She squirmed uncomfortably, but smiled at him and nudged his face with her nose before transforming back into a cat and following the others who were massing around Sunshine-Stealer's litter of kittens. Banana watched them for a moment, then turned and crawled out of the basement to glare at Lego. "What do you want?" 

"Matt worried." The blond dog shimmied a little and Banana arched an eyebrow. The body language was still profoundly canine, the sheepish, timid tail-wag of a dog not sure of his reception, only minus the tail. "Come home?" 

"I'm coming," Banana sighed and followed Lego out to the street. He only paused once to glance back over his shoulder toward the basement window. Amber eyes blinked back at him, reflecting the glow of sunlight before vanishing again.


	6. Family is Pack is Family

Mark, Matt, and Ryan slumped in the living room. Matt was idly flipping channels on the television while the other two poked around with their phones. When Lego proudly escorted Banana Rambo into the living room, everyone came to life in an instant. "Where have you been!?" Matt cried, scooping his cat up against his chest and hugging him. "I was worried about you."

"I just went for a walk," Banana said uncomfortably, squirming.

"Who's a good boy!?" crooned Ryan, rubbing Lego's head until the dog-turned-boy was almost drooling on himself in joy.

"Where was he?" Mark asked while Chica bounced around the room excitedly, just happy that everyone was happy.

"Basement," mumbled Lego, his eyes still rolled back in his head. "Cats."

"Even being able to speak, he doesn't make much sense," Ryan observed with a wry smile.

Giving Matt a little shove away from him, Banana tried to regain his composure. "I went looking for the Siamese, if you must know." Suddenly, he had everyone's attention in a way he wasn't entirely sure he liked. Even Chica was watching him closely.

When he didn't elaborate, Mark prompted impatiently, "Well!?"

"I didn't find her."

Lego snorted and gave Banana Rambo a long, surprisingly sharp look. "Other cats. Lots of cats."

Banana crossed his arms over his chest, put out to have been called out for his literal honesty. "Yes, I found other cats who can switch back and forth. It looks like most of us can, if we try hard enough and some of us are better about holding it than others. Have you tried it yet?" he asked the dogs.

"No." Lego looked puzzled. "Why?"

"Don't you miss being a dog?"

The retriever mix paused to consider the idea for a few minutes while Chica squirmed behind Mark, not making eye contact with anyone. Finally, he shrugged, "Yes. So?"

"If you can change, you should try. You could be a dog again," Ryan told him. "Wouldn't that be nice?"

Lego tilted his head and shrugged, "Either is nice." He wiggled his thumbs. "Can reach things. Can open doors. Can talk so you understand. Dog can run faster. Doesn't think so much. But thinking is nice. Sometimes." Suddenly, he paused and whined a little, rubbing his head. "Hurts sometimes."

"No kidding," Mark chuckled.

"Dog is easier," concluded Lego. "But human is better."

Mark looked over his shoulder to where Chica was trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. "What about you?"

"Human is better." Chica didn't look entirely convinced, her eyes still not meeting anyone else's and her arms hugged close to her body.

Concerned, Mark turned to face her more squarely, "You don't have to say that just because Lego did, you know. Would you rather be a dog?"

"DOG," Chica shouted, almost a wail, and started to cry. "Wanna be a pupper. Hate bras and clothes and hands. Wanna cuddle and bark at squirrels. Wanna be a good girl again."

"Ohhh!" Mark hugged her and tried not to laugh at her miserable expression. "Poor baby! You are a good girl, still."

"Wanna chew on things and eat kibble and chase cat. Wanna get scolded for getting Daddy's attention with a squeaky." Chica had essentially melted down, dropped down to her knees and was crying helplessly into the edge of her t-shirt. "Wanna be a pupper."

"Have you tried switching?" Mark asked her gently, hugging her and rocking her.

"YES." Chica almost howled the word. "No work."

Banana Rambo was watching the entire exchange with his chin in his hands and a Cheshire grin on his face. "This was definitely done by a cat," he mused to himself. "I've never seen anything so amusing in my life."

"What?" Matt asked him and the cat jumped.

"Nothing."

Matt gave him a narrow, suspicious glare. "No, you said something. What did you say?"

Banana squirmed, then shrugged, "The cats think this might have been done by a trickster god. You know, like Loki or something? Only a cat one."

"Are there any feline trickster gods?" Matt asked him and Banana shrugged.

"Damned if I know. It's the first I'd heard of it."

Matt rocked back on his heels and went over to his computer, still lost in thought. Banana followed him over and leaned over his shoulder to watch while the man brought up Google and typed in "feline trickster gods." The results varied from references to Freyja's cat-drawn chariot shared with a description of Loki to lists of feline gods and goddesses throughout world mythology. "Well, there really aren't any specific examples," Matt sighed. "But this is interesting. The Wikipedia page includes modern adaptations of trickster characters, like Bugs Bunny and the Pink Panther. If you include those..."

"But those aren't real," Banana protested.

"Depends on how you look at it," Mark pointed out, coming over to investigate over Matt's shoulder. "Does ancient history have a monopoly on mythology? If they believed and worshiped something, how is that different from modern iconography? Think about it, I mean... we wear our favorite comic book characters on our shirts, on stickers on our computers or cars. How is that different from the Greeks putting the faces of their gods on their shields?"

"I didn't know you'd studied mythology," Matt said, looking back at Mark.

"I coulda been an engineer."

"A mythology engineer?"

"No, but I went to college is my point." Mark pulled a chair over to watch while Matt scrolled through the Wikipedia page. "A lot of the tricksters are shape-shifters. None of them say anything about changing other people's shapes, though."

"Yeah, that's usually witches or wizards, isn't it?" Matt mused.

"She turned me into a newt!" called Ryan from the other room.

"I got better," Mark and Matt responded immediately, then laughed.

"So maybe it isn't a trickster?" Banana wondered. He leaned over Matt's lap to steal the mouse and scroll through the page some more. "What about this: 'Transgressor of boundaries, in the most literal of senses.' Felix the Cat?" He clicked on the expanded article and the others leaned in with him to read. "Naw, this is just a cartoon character."

"But look." Mark tapped the screen with a fingertip, then reached to take the mouse back from Banana. "The critical stuff talks about a child's sense of whimsy, creating the surreal where it isn't present and taking it in stride when it happens on its own."

"Which is what all the cats are doing," Matt added, looking surprised. "I mean, they're the best adapted to this whole nightmare. They're the only ones who can switch back and forth on their own."

Banana snorted and raised an eyebrow at them, "What else are we supposed to do? Freak out and slobber on everything? Cats usually have some level of dignity."

"That's what I mean," Matt continued. His expression was more animated and Mark and Banana could both feel his excitement rising as he spoke. "They're taking the surreal in stride. If the fictional Felix is like... a cultural representation of a deeper trickster concept, that trickster could have created the surreal stuff to watch his people rolling with the punches."

"If he identifies with the cats at all," Banana sighed. "I mean, this isn't exactly convenient for us, either."

"Convenient, no," Mark said thoughtfully. "But surreal? Definitely."

"It's something to think about, anyway," Matt said. "It's not like we can just call him up or offer up a prayer to Felix the Cat to ask him to set things right again." All three stopped to consider that and sighed, discouraged.

"Such long faces," Ryan said as he walked into the room with a fresh bowl of popcorn. Lego was close behind him, though Chica was nowhere to be seen. "Find anything interesting?"

"Not really," Banana said.

"Oh, c'mon, this is plenty interesting!" Mark protested. "It's just not... real practical." He grinned sheepishly at Ryan. "We're reading about trickster figures in pop culture and mythology."

"You're lost on Wikipedia again, aren't you?" Ryan asked and Matt chuckled.

"Not lost! Just... discouraged," Matt sighed with Mark nodding. "I really just want my cat back."

With an unceremonious snort, Banana vanished in a cloud of ginger cat hair and sloughed out of his human clothing to curl up in Matt's lap, back to his own feline self again. They all stared at him for a moment and Mark shook his head, "I wish it was that easy to make everything better with the dogs, too. Poor Chica."

"Where is she, anyway?" Ryan wondered.

"I thought she was with you." Mark stood up quickly and started to hunt through the house. "Chica? Chica-roo! Where's my pupper-snup?" When there was no response, Matt and Ryan got up to join him, Lego trailing after them and Banana riding Matt's shoulder like a warrior riding to battle, head out, ears forward, tail lashing for balance.

"Chica?"

"Chica!"

Finally, they all stumbled back into the kitchen, Mark looking panicked and the others worried. "She's not here," Mark said. "Where is she?"

Banana leaped down from Matt's shoulder to the kitchen table and turned a circle around a notebook lying there. The others rushed to see a crudely written note on the open page, apparently scrawled in dry-erase marker: "Be Pupper. Back later."

"What the hell?" Mark breathed. His eyes were wide and he looked at Banana in a panic. "What does that mean?" The cat gave him a sardonic stare, sat neatly on the notebook and curled his tail around his paws with a squinted, whiskers-arched expression. "Fuck, you can't talk." He spun around to look at Matt and Ryan. "She's gone."

"She must have gone looking for a way to turn back," Ryan said in a worried tone. "All this fuss over Banana Rambo made her jealous."

The cat sneezed suddenly four or five times in quick succession, then dangled his skinny human legs over the edge of the table. "Don't blame this on me," he snarked. "It's not my fault she can't turn back into a dog." Banana stood up and shook himself all over. "Maybe Lego can sniff her out. He sniffed out me."

They all turned to the blond boy standing near the wall. Lego shifted uncomfortably and watched Ryan's feet before answering, "Chica not want to be followed. She want to be pupper. Not come back 'til she's a pupper again."

Mark took a few quick strides across the room toward the dog and Lego cowered against the wall, chin tucked submissively. "Lego, please. She could get hurt. If there's a way to fix this, we should all be finding it together. Where is she? Can you follow her scent?" Lego didn't look up to meet his eyes and Mark took a step back, realizing he was crowding the dog's personal space. "I don't want her to be scared and by her self. We're all in this together. We're family."

"We pack." Lego peeked up at Mark, then looked to Ryan and Matt. "We pack?"

"We're pack," agreed Ryan with an encouraging smile.

"And I'm the crazy cousin you keep locked in the basement," snorted Banana, but he sighed when Matt scratched the back of his head. "Oh, fuck, we're family."

"Where'd she go, Lego?"

Lego turned his head toward the door, took a deep breath, and snorted it out again. "She GO."

And the chase was on.


End file.
